Volume 9 , Issue 16

1903 Damage Trial At Alva, O. T.

This early 1900 damage trial was held in Alva, Oklahoma Territory (O.T.) around February 10, 1903. We found this 1903 news article in the "Daily Oklahoma" archives. Does the Flohr-Richards trial of 1903 ring a bell, jog any memories with anyone? Did one of the attorneys really pull a gun with a threatening attitude? This sounds like something that would happen in the Woods County Courts, in northwest Oklahoma!

The headlines, February 10, 1903 read as follows: "Damage Trial On - Case At Alva Attracting More Than Its full Quota of Attention - Hot Time In Court Room - One of the Attorneys Pulls A Gun and Assumes Threatening Attitude."

Here is the rest of the story as taken from the "Oklahoman"... "Special to The Oklahoman, Cleo, O.T., Feb. 10, 1903 -- One of the most disgusting trials ever held in Oklahoma is now in progress in the probate court at Alva. The case is the Richards-Flohr damage suit, and it has occupied (sic) the attention of the court for the last three weeks.

Flohr is a resident of Cleo, and has been for the past eight or nine years, and is noted in this community for his ardent love for a lawsuit. He has a quarter section of land just north of the townsite and is worth some money.

Richards is a physician now living at Rusk, but when he came to this country some three years ago he located at Cleo, where he practiced medicine for about a year. During his stay at this place it seems that he struck up an intimate acquaintance with Flohr, and that finally Flohr went on his note for several hundred dollars, and Richards raised enough money to start a small drug store at Rusk, a town ten miles south of this place.

All went well for several months, until last spring, when Richards and his wife secured for adoption that little child at Wichita, which when they got it, was in a healthy condition, but in two weeks they took it back to the home of which Mrs. Glen Ellen Shields is matron, and it died the next day after it was returned. Suspicion was aroused and after a long trial in which Flohr figured prominently, at Wichita, Richards and his wife were convicted of cruelty to the child and a heavy fine was imposed on them.

While Richards was away it seems that either known or unknown to him several hundred dollars worth of goods from the drug store at Rusk were brought to Flohr's farm at Cleo and concealed about the place. But during Flohr's absence, Deputy Huntington and Richards, with a search warrant, searched the place thoroughly, and dug up several hundred dollars worth of goods. The strange thing was that Richards had no trouble in locating things in places that would never be thought of, even drawing up a bunch of surgical instruments from a well that was suspended there with a strong cord.

When the Wichita trouble was over Flohr came home and filed suit against Richards in this county for trying to beat him out of his money, or some other charge, of which the present trial is the result. Nearly a hundred witnesses have been examined, many of whom were devoid of any knowledge of the case whatever. Most of these came from Cleo, Rusk and Fairview and had to make the 40 to 54 mile trip to Alva at their own expense and stay in the meantime, perhaps two or three days."
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